The Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University Belfast has announced the appointment of Dr. Susannah Dickey as their new Publishing Fellow, and Dr. Shannon Kuta Kelly and Dr. Hanna Slättne as the new Ciaran Carson Writing and the City Fellows for 2025.

The Fellowships, worth £10,000 per annum, allow the University to maintain relationships with recently graduated alumni and supports writers at a critical point in their career by giving them professional experience in the literary and academic sector.

Fellows, working in all forms of creative writing, contribute to life at the Seamus Heaney Centre through masterclasses, workshops, one-to-one tutorials, and performances, and bring new voices to the academic and public arena.

Acting Director of the Seamus Heaney Centre, Professor Leontia Flynn, said of the three new fellows:

I'm delighted to announce Susannah Dickey as Publishing Fellow for 2025 and Shannon Kuta Kelly and Hanna Slättne as Ciaran Carson Writing and the City Fellows for 2025.  The Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s hosts annual Fellowships in memory of its first director, Ciaran Carson, and inspired by his writing about the city of Belfast in prose as well as poetry, and both fellowships are awarded to recently completed PhD students at the School of Arts, English and Languages.  Susie, Shannon and Hanna represent a brilliant line-up  and we look forward to welcoming them to the Centre next year.

Dr. Susannah Dickey is a writer from Derry. She is the author of two novels, Tennis Lessons (2020) and Common Decency (2022), and her debut collection of poetry, ISDAL, was published in 2023 and was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. ISDAL won the inaugral PEN Heaney Prize in 2024. 

Dr. Shannon Kuta Kelly is a writer, translator, and musician. She recently completed her PhD in poetry at the Seamus Heaney Centre, the critical component of which examined Ciaran Carson’s use of coded language and translation. Her work has appeared in such places as the New England Review, Poetry Ireland Review, and the Irish Times, and she has presented her research at conferences throughout the United States and Europe. Her debut poetry collection is forthcoming in spring 2026.

Dr. Hanna Slättne is an award-winning dramaturg with a 25-year long career of exploring storytelling in performance with writers, directors and choreographers across new writing, dance and XR and hybrid environment. Her PhD, based at SARC focussed on writing for the body in immersive audio. Her own current practice builds on this work creating audio work that play with story, structure, and the environment.

She is an experienced lecturer having taught playwriting and dramaturgy at Goldsmiths University, QUB and ATU Sligo. She is a facilitator of inter-disciplinary and international artists residencies including the SPACE Programs with Performance Corporation, LittleTinySpace with Anna Newell Theatre Adventures and The International Dramaturgy Lab 2021 connecting 90 dramaturgs across the globe.

In 2016 she received the Kenneth Tynan Award for Excellence in Dramaturgy and in 2017 an Elliot Hayes Award special commendation, for her work on the immersive audio play Reassembled Slightly Askew by Shannon Yee. 

ENDS…

Notes to editor:

1. For further information on previous Fellows at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s, visit: https://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/seamus-heaney-centre/
2. For further information on the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University Belfast please contact Rachel Brown, Centre Coordinator on +44(0)28 9097 1077 or email: r.brown@qub.ac.uk.

About the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s

Since 2003 the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s has been home to some of the UK and Ireland’s foremost poets, novelists, scriptwriters, and critics, and each year growing their worldwide network of writers and critics. Building on a literary heritage at Queen’s University Belfast that stretches back to the 1960s Belfast Group, the Centre is dedicated to excellence and innovation in creative writing and poetry criticism. In 2024, the Seamus Heaney Centre moved into a landmark new building. 

 

Media

Media enquiries to Zara McBrearty at Queen’s Communications Office on email: z.mcbrearty@qub.ac.uk